


Power cut

by RiTheBiGuy_RileyTMR



Category: The Good Doctor (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:54:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29385177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiTheBiGuy_RileyTMR/pseuds/RiTheBiGuy_RileyTMR
Summary: A heavy storm causes the power in the hospital to cut out, how will the doctors react when there are patients lives at risk?
Relationships: Carly Lever/Shaun Murphy, Claire Browne/Neil Melendez
Comments: 25
Kudos: 38





	1. The storm

**Author's Note:**

> I’m attempting to make this run kinda like an episode would so I hope it makes sense.

“When do you think this storm will clear up?” Morgan asked standing by the large windows in the residents lounge, looking out at the torrential rain that was hammering on the glass.

“It’s meant to be like this for another two days,” Shaun replied, “I saw it on the weather channel this morning.”

“I’m just glad I’m not out in it,” Claire said.

“Worried it will mess up your hair?” Alex asked, chuckling as Claire rolled her eyes.

“You’ve got more important things to worry about,” Neil said as he walked in from his office, “the storms bringing in patients pretty quickly, Lim wants us all in the ER tonight,” the residents all nodded and followed their attending.

They got their gowns and gloves on when they entered the busy room. 

“Park, you’re with me,” Dr Glassman said as he walked past him and over to the patient lying on a bed, “head injury from a car accident, what do we need to do?”

“Head CT,” he replied.

“Good, let’s go,” the two wheeled their patient out of the room.

“Reznick, over here,” Andrews called over to her, she went over to where he was standing next to a patient, “water got into the electrics in her house, causing a small fire, she has severe burns to her arms and inhaled smoke, I need you to take her to the burn unit and clean up the burns, make sure you keep an eye on her stats, depending on how severe the smoke damage is she may need intubating.”

“Got it,” Morgan replied, leading her patient to the burn unit as Andrews headed to check on another patient.

“Can I get some help here!” An EMT called as they wheeled a young man into the ER.

“Browne, you’re with me, Murphy go find Dr Lim,” Melendez said, Claire followed him over to the man.

“He’s been struck by lightning,” the EMT told them, “suffered cardiac arrest, got his heart beating again and incubated on the scene but we’re not sure how much damage has been done.”

“Alright, we’ll take it from here,” Melendez said, checking the mans eyes, “we need to get him a head CT, possible brain damage, what else should we do Dr Browne?”

“Abdominal CT, possibly an MRI, check to see the damage to his organs,” Claire answered.

“Let’s do it then,” Neil said. Meanwhile, Shaun and Lim were trying to fix up a small child who was knocked over by a heavy stream of water.

“Looks like it’s just a broken arm,” Lim said the the young girls parents, Dr Murphy here will put a cast on it for you and you should be alright to go home.

“Oh thank God, we were worried it would be more serious,” her mother said. Shaun started to wrap the little girls arm in plaster.

“I don’t feel too good,” she said weakly.

“What’s the matter?” Shaun asked, the girl started to say something but before she could she threw up over the floor and passed out, Shaun quickly laid her down on the bed as Audrey came over. They checked her over and noticed a large bruise on her back. 

“Possible internal bleeding, lets get her a CT scan,” she said, Shaun nodded and wheeled her to the necessary room.

“Looks like a brain bleed,” Park said to Dr Glassman, pointing to a spot on the scan, “damage to the frontal lobe.”

“He’s going to need surgery, go book the OR, I’ll get him out of here,” Alex got up and scheduled the OR, within minutes they were set up and ready to go.

In the burn unit, Morgan was carefully removing the damaged skin from her patients arms and hands.

“How’s it going in here?” Andrew’s asked as he walked in.

“Painful,” the woman on the bed said, wincing slightly.

“I’ll give you a little bit more morphine,” Morgan said, adding the medication to her IV, she sat back down and started working on the woman’s hands again, “this is our plastic surgeon, Dr Andrews,” she said to their patient, “and this is Michelle,” the woman smiled and nodded at him, crying out in pain as Morgan pulled at her skin, “sorry,“ she said, suddenly Michelle’s monitors started to beep and she grabbed at her throat.

“She’s inhales too much smoke, soot is clogging her airways,” Andrews said, rushing over to til her bed down flat.

“I need an intubation kit in here!” Morgan shouted and a couple of nurses rushed in, they quickly place the tube down here throat and got her breathing again.

“Alright lets get her on a ventilator, keep an eye on her and if she starts getting worse then schedule a bronchoscopy,” Andrews said before leaving Morgan to sort the burns again.

“Looks like she’s ruptured a kidney,” Lim said as her and Shaun looked at the scans, “we need to get her to an OR now,” they both stood up Shaun got their patient whilst Lim went to find an OR.

“What do you mean there aren’t any?” Lim said the the OR scheduler.

“90% of them at in use, the others have got water damage,” she replied.

“That’s just great,” Lim muttered, “how long do you think it’ll be until an OR is free, I’ve got a child bleeding internally who could really do with being operated on.”

“Dr Faulkner is now closing up a patient, I’ll let you know as soon as he’s done.”

“Let’s hope this little girl is still alive by then,” Lim huffed.

“I can’t see any brain activity,” Claire said, Neil leant next to her and looked at the screen.

“He’s brain dead,” he sighed.

“Would he still he viable for organ donation?” She asked.

“Doesn’t look likely,” he replied, “most of his organs are damaged, his heart, lungs, liver, stomach, in fact it would be easier to list what isn’t beyond repair,” he ran his hands down his face, “we’ll have to keep him on a ventilator and notify his next of kin, whoever it is will have to make the decision as to wether or not we unplug his life support.”

“Dr Lim,” Carly walked over to the chief of surgery as she was waiting for an OR.

“What is it Dr Lever?” She asked.

“We’ve got a problem, the whole ground floor has started flooding, we’ve been trying to keep the water out but the rains coming down too heavily and it’s coming through under the doors, the labs been affected so we’ve moved as much equipment upstairs as we can, we’ve also started to move all patients to higher floors but we’re running out of rooms,” Carly replied. Audrey sighed.

“This is just great, ok double up patients who are low risk, hey whoever you can to help, I don’t care what department they’re in, we need all hands on deck. As for the tests, take Shaun with you and work out which ones are needed the most and get them done first,” she said, Carly nodded and went to do as she’d said, Shaun following close behind

Morgan had just finished debriding Michelle’s burns and wrapped them up when the power suddenly cut out. 

“Crap,” she said in the darkness, she fished her phone out of her pocket and turned the torch on, she placed it on the table so she could check on her patient. The woman laying in the bed started choking as the ventilator was no longer on, she quickly detached the ventilator and swapped her to a hand held pump, “I hope this power-cut doesn’t last long,” she muttered to herself.”

“Now that the bleeding is controlled, we can start closing him up,” Aaron said to Park as they worked on their patient, “sutures,” he called to a scrub nurse who passed then over to him, he started to stitch their patients head when they were plunged into darkness.

“That’s not good,” Alex said.

“No, no it’s not,” Dr Glassman agreed.

“What should we do, we’ve got no monitors, so we can’t keep an eye on his stats and we’ve got no lights so we can’t do anything,” Alex questioned.

“I need anyone who has their hands free to find us some torches, as many as you can, Park I need you to keep making sure that our patients heart is still beating and if someone could manually pump air into his body that would be great,” Glassman responded, “we’re going to do this the old fashioned way.”

“So our patients name is Hunter Edwards, I have contacted his wife, she’s out of state at the minute and isn’t able to get here for a few days due to the storm,” Claire said as she caught up with Neil who was waiting for the elevator.

“That’s understandable,” he said, “have you heard, the ground floor is flooded.”

“Yeah, I walked past Lea on my way here and she mentioned that she was heading that way to help move patients, they‘ve got everyone helping,” she replied. They stepped into the elevator.

“And there’s a couple of OR’s out of order due to water damage, I can’t see what else could go wrong,” as Neil said this, the elevator stopped and the lights cut out, “spoke too soon,” he muttered.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Claire sighed.

“Ten blade,” Lim said, a nurse passed her the necessary equipment and she started operating on her patient, she’d just removed the kidney when the monitor started beeping.

“She’s bradyardic,” the anaesthesiologist said. Lim quickly worked to get her patient stable and within a few minutes her heart rate was back to normal. Lim sighed in relief, that was until the power cut out.

“Shit!” she shouted.

“What should we do?” One of the nurses asked.

“Get me torches, I need light, there should be a load of mini generators somewhere, we can use them to get the monitors back up and running,” Lim replied.

“Where are they?” The nurse asked.

“In the basement,” she answered.

“But isn’t the ground floor flooded?”

“Shit!” Lim shouted again.


	2. Generators

“Okay Nurse Fletch, if you could move the torch slightly towards me,” Dr Glassman said to the nurse behind him, she moved the torch the way he’d asked her, giving him a clearer view of the surgical field, “how’s the patient looking?” He asked Park.

“Pulse is strong and steady,” he said while holding the mans wrist, he quickly checked his pupils, “pupils are reactive, doesn’t appear to be any obvious problems,” he sighed, “besides the power.”

“Good, I’m almost done here so as long as he stays stable we can get him to the ICU, once there you’ll have to stay with him and keep monitoring him, checking everything you can think of, we don’t have machines to rely on so it’s done to you,” Park nodded and went back to checking the mans pulse.

“Dr Melendez, can you stop pacing please? It’s very distracting,” Claire asked, Neil looked at her, both of them lit up by the torch on his phone.

“Sorry,” he said, sitting down next to her, “just could do without being stuck in an elevator.”

“The way I think of it, is that it could be worse, could be stuck in here with literally anyone else,” Claire joked, Neil laughed at this.

“You make a very good point Dr Browne,” he replied, “I bet no one has realised that we’re in here yet either.”

“Probably not, it’s got to be hectic out there, the storm must have done a lot of damage if it’s taken out the main power and the back up.”

“Yeah,” Neil agreed, “I can just imagine how stressed out Dr Lim must be right now.”

“We need more lights!” Lim said as she tried to keep her patient alive and “I need someone to go get me a generator.”

“We don’t have anymore, they’ve spread them out evenly between all the OR’s,” a nurse said to her.

“I’ll go find the generators,” another nurse said before scrubbing out.

“How many OR’s are still in use?” Lim asked.

“All but the ones with water damage, I hear Dr Glassman is nearly finished so when they’re done we can use theirs,” the first nurse said.

“Dr Glassman’s in a surgery?” She asked, the nurse nodded, “then who the hell is running things out there?”

“Put those two in a room together,” Andrews directed the nurses, “we’ll have a handful of nurses on the floors with stable patients who aren’t on any sort of life support, you will need to check on everyone frequently and there will be less of you so no getting distracted. Find any source of lighting you can, phones, torches, I don’t care, just make sure there is enough lighting that no more injuries are caused,” the nurses headed to do what he told them. 

“How can we help?” Lea walked over to him and asked, Debbie just behind her.

“Are all the patients from the ground floor on higher floors?” He asked.

“Yes,” Debbie replied.

“Good, Debbie would you be able to keep an eye on this floor for me, the patients are all alert and stable, nobody’s critical, I’d appreciate it if you and the nurses here could keep them like that,” Debbie nodded and went to help.

“What about me?” Lea asked.

“I need you to round up as many people as possible, Janitors, cooks, IT techs, I don’t care, then come find me,” he said.

“Got it,” she turned and went to search for people.

“This is not going to work, I can’t see anything,” Shaun complained as he looked through the microscope.

“I’m trying to give you as much light as possible but it’s pretty hard with my phone,” Carly replied.

“It’s okay, from what I can tell there is nothing wrong with this sample, the patient should be okay to wait on the rest of their tests,” he grabbed the next case file and started reading it, “this one will need to be done straight away,” he passed it to Carly and she nodded in agreement before starting the necessary tests.

Morgan sighed as she sat next to her patient, pumping air into her body, it was a very tedious job, one that she had to do though. She looked down at her patient and noticed that she was sweating. She grabbed a thermometer that was neArby’s and checked her temperature.

“Dammit,” she muttered to herself, Michelle was showing signs of an infection, “Nurse!” She shouted out of the room but no one showed up, “anybody? I need antibiotics in here ASAP,” she tried but still nobody came and she realised that she either had to leave her patient and risk her not getting enough oxygen in her or stay as the infection spread in her body.

“Dr Andrews,” Lea said as she walked over to him, “I did what you said and gathered everyone I could,” she gestured to the large group of people behind her.

“Good,” he replied, “follow me,” he led them to one of the floors above, he spoke as they walked, “I have all of my spare nurses, surgeons, residents and any other type of doctor manually ventilating all of our critical patients, problem with that is that we need them for other, more pressing issues, so I need you guys to do it for me,” he walked into a room, “this is what you’ll need to do,” he showed them all what to do and made sure they also knew how to perform CPR, “we’ll be keeping a few nurses and doctors per floor so if you need any help just shout,“ they all nodded Sand headed into the rooms to take over from the medical professionals.

“Where has that nurse gotten to!” Lim said, stressing out about her current predicament. 

“I’m not sure, I’ve been paging her but she hasn’t answered,” another nurse said

“Great,” Audrey sighed, I’ve got a patient open on the table and no way of know if she’s okay. Can you see what surgeons are available? I need to get out there and find out what the situation is like.” 

“Not without the electricity,” the nurse replied.

“I’m pretty sure Dr Melendez’s patient is brain dead so he may be free,” the anaesthesiologist said.

“Okay, page Melendez, actually better yet, call him and put it on speaker so I can find out what’s going on.”

Claire and Neil jumped when they heard a phone ringing, they both grabbed theirs and Neil saw that it was his phone that was ringing.

“Melendez,” he said as he answered.

“Neil, I’m stuck in an OR with a little girl open on the table, would you be able to let me know what the situation is like out there? And maybe come here and take over so I can make sure everything is fine?” They heard Lim’s voice through the phone.

“As much as I’d love to do that, I can’t. Dr Browne and I are currently trapped in an elevator,” he replied, he pulled the phone away from his ear as she started shouting swear words, “you okay now?” He asked when she stopped.

“No, I’m not okay, the chief of surgery and the president of the hospital are stuck in surgeries and I have no idea what’s going on in the rest of the hospital, I’ve sent a nurse to grab some generators from the basement but she hasn’t returned yet, the ground floor is flooded and now I find out that an attending and a resident are trapped in an elevator, I am anything but okay,” she yelled down the phone at him.

“Look I’m sure everything’s fine,” Neil tried to say but Lim spoke again.

“Neil, we have nothing working, ventilators, monitors, nothing, do you know how many patients could be dead?”

“Quite a few,” he sighed, “I’ve been trying to find ways to get out of here but there’s nothing I can do.”

“Me too, I can’t leave my patient like this,” she sighed, “I’ll try to work something out, I’ll speak to you later,” she hung up and Neil put his phone in his pocket.

“She seems stressed,” Claire commented.

“Yeah, just a bit,” Melendez agreed.

“I wish there was something we can do to help,” she sighed.

“I’d just like to not lose my sanity in here,” Neil laughed causing Claire to chuckle.

“I wonder how everyone else is getting on,” she said.

“Stay with him, let me know when he wakes up and we can see how much damage he’s suffered,” Glassman said to Park as they wheeled their patient into the ICU, they looked around for an empty room but saw that not only were the rooms all full, there were also patients on beds in the hallways, he stopped a nurse that was walking past, “what’s going on here?” He asked.

“The entire first floor is flooded, we’ve had to move patients around, anyone critical was bought up to this floor and the floor above so that we can keep an eye on them, all the other patients are on all the other floors,” she said, “now I need to go check on someone,” she quickly rushed off. Aaron and Alex looked at each other before finding somewhere to put their patient.

“She’s bleeding!” Lim said as she tried to find where the bleed is in her patient, “I must have nicked an artery with my scissors,” they packed the young girl with cloths to soak up as much blood as they could.

“There it is!” A nurse said as she pointed her torch to the bleed.

“Good find,” Lim said as she tied the artery before stitching it up.

“Dr Lim,” another nurse said as she walked into the OR, “Dr Glassman is now out of surgery.”

“Good,” Audrey replied, “get him on the phone.”

“Dr Glassman,” Aaron said, answering his phone.

“I hear you’re out of surgery,” he heard Lim’s voice.

“Yes I am,” he replied, “I’m just looking for Marcus or Neil to find out what’s going on out here.”

“Well you won’t find Neil, he and Claire are stuck in an elevator,” she said to him.

“Fun,” he commented, he turned a corner and saw Andrews talking to a nurse, “I’ve just found Marcus, I’ll put you on speaker and he can fill us both in,” he walked over to the younger man, “what’s going on?” 

“I’ve got as many non medical staff manually ventilating any patients that need it, each floor has a handful of medically trained staff keeping an eye on things, I’ve put one person in charge on each floor to keep everything running smoothly, in fact I think your wife is keeping and eye on the third floor,” Marcus said.

“So all the patients on life support are okay?” Lim asked through the phone.

“So far there have been no casualties since the powers gone out,” he answered, “we’ve had to completely close off the ground floor, which means nobody will be leaving tonight, we’ve set up as many beds as we can and there are a few people in the process of moving chairs from lounges and offices for patients family members who are stuck here, we’ve got a problem about food though, we’ve managed to salvage quite a bit, but not enough for everyone.”

“We’ll have to ration it, we’ll make sure the children and the elderly are all fed first, then the more serious patients, then less serious, then family and friends,” Dr Glassman said. Aaron nodded.

“I’ve got another problem,” Lim said, “I sent a nurse to get some of the portable generators that were in the basement but she hasn’t come back.”

“I’ll go see where she is,” Aaron said.

“Go find Shaun and take him with you, he’s helping Carly and the lab techs but he’d be more helpful with you, you can carry more that way,” Glassman agreed and headed off to find Shaun.

“How long have we been in here?” Claire asked. Neil looked at his watch.

“5 hours,” he said, “but since the ground floor is flooded, I can’t imagine anyone will be able to fix the power for a while.”

“The storms supposed to last another couple of days,” Claire muttered.

“Yeah I was trying not to think about that,” Neil said, leaning his head back on the wall.

“Wanna take your mind off it?” Claire asked.

“What do you have in mind?” He replied, looking at her.

“I dunno,” she admitted, “I was kind of hoping you’d have an idea,” he laughed at this, he definitely had an idea but it wasn’t exactly appropriate.

“Help!” Morgan shouted for what felt like the 100th time. A nurse ran into the room.

“Sorry Dr Reznick, it’s hectic out there,” she said, face red from where she’d been rushing around.

“It’s fine, just get me some antibiotics,” the nurse rushed off then came back with a syringe, Morgan indicates for the nurse to take over with the ventilation as She injected the patient, “hopefully she should be alright soon,” she started to check Michelle’s pulse before listening to her heart and lungs, “somethings wrong with her lungs, I think the smoke damage was more severe than we first thought,” she said to the nurse, “I’m going to need to page Dr Andrews, she needs a bronchoscopy.”

“Shaun, I need you to come with me and fast,” Aaron said as he walked into the makeshift lab.

“Where are we going?” Shaun asked, standing up and following Dr Glassman.

“The basement, we need to get the spare generators.”

“But isn’t the ground floor flooded?” He questioned.

“Yes, we’ll have to walk through it,” Aaron replied.

“I don’t like that, but it’s for the good of the patients, so I’ll do it,” Shaun said.

“Good, I’m glad to hear that,” Aaron said as they reached the stairs down to the ground floor. They walked down and stepped into the water at the bottom, it was up to their ankles and they waded through it to the stairs that lead to the basement. Water was rushing down the steps and they carefully made their way down. Once at the bottom Aaron shone his torch around, he stopped in on what looked like a pile of scrubs on the floor, he stepped closer and noticed it was the nurse that Lim had sent to get the generators. He rushed over to her and checked her pulse.

“She must have fallen down the stairs,” Shaun commented, “is she okay?”

“No Shaun, no she’s not,” Dr Glassman sighed, “She’s dead.”


	3. Insane

“What’s happened?” Andrews asked as he walked into Michelle’s room.

“Her lungs don’t sound good, the smoke damage could be severe, I think we’re gonna need a bronchoscopy,” Morgan replied.

“Well luckily for us, Dr Glassman and Dr Murphy are getting portable generators from the basement, as soon as they get back we’ll grab one,” Andrews said, he turned to the nurse who was still in the room, “I’m going to need you to go wait at the top of the stairs leading down to the first floor, as soon as they come up ask them for a generator and then meet us in the procedure room,” the nurse headed out of the room and Morgan and Andrews prepared to move their patient.

“I hope they’re back soon,” Morgan muttered.

“What should we do about nurse Taylor?” Shaun asked, indicating the woman on the floor.

“We’ll have to leave her there Shaun, there’s nothing we can do for her now, we can’t carry her and the generators up,” Aaron said.

“Okay,” Shaun replied.

“Now help me look for these things,” Shaun moved his torch to light up areas of the room.

“Do you know if everybody is okay?” He asked.

“I know Dr Andrews and Dr Lim are fine, Dr Melendez and Dr Browne are stuck in the elevator, Lea and Debbie are helping with patients, I’m not sure where Dr Reznick is but I believe she’s with patients as well and Dr Park is with our patient that came into the ER,” Dr Glassman said.

“That’s good,” Shaun said as he continued to look.

“I’m hungry, when can we get some food?”

“When can we get out of here?” 

“Are they trying to turn the power back on?” The questions were filling Debbie’s head and We’re starting to give her a headache, she’d been explaining to people for the past hour about the situation but no one seemed to be listening. Finally she snapped.

“Alright listen up everybody!” She shouted, “there will be food get sorted out soon, it is limited so the people who need it most will get it first, so the sick, and the elderly and the children, if you are none of those then sit down and stop asking because you are last on our list. None of you can get out of here, the ground floor is flooded, the streets are flooded, the storm is giving us everything it’s got so for now you need to stay put, this is for your own safety. We’re unable to get someone here to fix the power tonight so you’ll just have to deal with the darkness, your eyes will adjust eventually, don’t worry, I hope that clears it up for everyone and if you don’t mind we’d all like to get back to saving lives and keeping this hospital running!” She walked away from the group of patients family members that had gathered and they all stood there awkwardly before going back into the rooms.

‘1,2,3,4,5,6‘ Alex was counting in his head as he measured his patients pulse, he’d done this many times tonight and it was starting to get tedious, but this time was different, his heart rate was slower, he pulled out his stethoscope and placed it on the mans chest, he could hear his heart beat but it wasn’t as strong as before, he felt for the pulse again but it was weak and fading quickly.

“Crap!” He said as he started chest compressions, “you can’t die on me now.”

“I’ve found them!” Aaron called out in the dark, he saw Shaun’s light turn and face towards him and heard the splashing his feet made as he walked over to him through the now rising water. Aaron picked up as many as he could carry and Shaun did the same, “okay, we’ve got 4 between us, there’s another 4 down here so we’ll take these up to Dr Lim and come back for the rest.”

“Okay,” Shaun agreed, following Dr Glassman back.

They made their way up the stairs from the basement, through the ground floor and up the stairs to the next floor, where they were stopped by a nurse.

“Could Dr Andrews use one of these? It’s an emergency!” She pleaded.

“Of course,” Aaron answered and handed one to her, she quickly ran back to Andrews as they headed to the OR’s.

“I’ve got the generator,” the nurse called as she walked into the procedure room.

“Great, lets turn this thing on and connect the bronchoscopy machine up to it,” Andrews said. They quickly got everything they needed together and started the bronchoscopy.

“The damage is looking pretty severe,” Morgan said as they looked at the screen.

“It does, the best thing we can do for her at the moment is to give her some medication and keep her on oxygen,” Marcus replied, “and then we hope that she doesn’t die.”

“Here’s your generators,” Aaron said as he walked into the OR.

“That’s great, lets get these monitors plugged in,” Lim said to the nurses, “would you two be able to give the other ones to the other OR’s that still have patients and then once you’ve done that is there any chance of scrubbing in with me, I could use the extra pairs of hands.”

“We can, but there were more generators downstairs, we’ll grab them first so that they can use them on the other floors,” Aaron replied.

“No worries, just be quick please,” the two men nodded and went to leave when Audrey spoke again, “don’t suppose you saw my scrub nurse while you were down there did you?” Shaun and Aaron looked at each other.

“We did, but it’s not good news,” Aaron said, “she’d slipped on the wet stairs, we found her at the bottom, there was nothing we could do for her,” one of the other nurses in the room tried to hold back a sob when they said this.

“That’s a shame,” Audrey said sadly, “she was nice,” Aaron nodded and went to leave again, “be careful you two,” Audrey added.

“How long have we been in here?” Claire asked.

“Too long,” Neil replied.

“Well I know that,” Claire retorted.

“I don’t know Claire, I can’t see my watch,” they had been in the elevator for 8 hours at this point, Claire’s phone had died about 3 hours earlier and they were plunged into complete darkness, Neil had decided to keep his phone turned off to preserve battery so they could still have contact with the others.

“I’m going mad in here,” Claire said, she stood up and started pacing.

“Do you remember moaning at me earlier because the pacing was annoying?” Neil said.

“I could see you pacing then, you can’t see me,” she retorted.

“I can still hear you,” he replied. Suddenly he heard her banging on the door, “that won’t help, all you’re doing is wearing yourself out.”

“I can’t be in here for much longer Neil, I’m going insane!” She snapped at him.

“There’s nothing we can do to get out, we’ve just got to wait for them to switch the power back on,” he tried to calm her down.

“But how long will that be? We could run out of oxygen before that, we could dehydrate, we could die in here, this does just feel like a giant metal coffin,” Claire was pacing again at this point. Neil stood up and she walked straight into him. He grabbed her to stop her from pacing again.

“Hey, we’re going to be fine,” he told her, “okay?”

“But what if we’re not?” She asked.

“We can’t think about that,” he said, he pulled her into him and wrapped his arms around her, he could feel her tears coming through his shirt as she cried into his chest, “let’s sit down, you’re tired, you should try getting some sleep,” he sat down and Claire sat next to him.

“I won’t be able to sleep,” she mumbled, Neil put his arm around her and pulled her into his side.

“Yes you can Claire, we’ll be okay, I’ve got you.”

Shaun and Dr Glassman quickly grabbed the remaining generators before bringing them back upstairs, they left them with Andrews who was now back to organising everybody, before heading to the OR to scrub in with Lim. 

When they got there they found that Park was in there with her.

“We won’t need you two now, Parks scrubbed in with me, you should go help the others,” Audrey said.

“I thought you were with our patient Dr Park,” Dr Glassman said. The younger man looked down sadly.

“His heart gave out,” he told him, “I think he had underlying conditions that we couldn’t see.”

“Well, that’s a shame,” Aaron said, “we’ll go see how we can help out there,” he turned and left the room, Shaun following close behind.

“What do you need doing?” Aaron asked Andrews.

“We’re handing out the food, we’ve got everything they managed to salvage from the cafeteria as well as everything from the vending machines, I’m still not too sure how Lea managed to pick the locks on them but I’m not going to question it, we also have food volunteered from some of the doctors and nurses lunches that they never got to eat,” Marcus said, “I’ve given some to Debbie for her floor, Leah has some for hers and between the three os is I’m sure we can cover the rest,” they all nodded and started to hand out the food.

Dr Lim managed to finish up her surgery and the young girl was moved to the ICU, she’d just scrubbed out and was heading to find the others, when her phone rang.

“Dr Lim,” she answered.

“Have you ever been stuck in a pitch black box for,” there was a pause, she presumed it was so Neil could look at the time on his phone, “11 hours and 30 minutes?”

“No, I can’t say I have,” she replied.

“Well it’s hell,” he stated.

“Is that why you called me?” She asked.

“No, I’m calling to see how it’s going out there,” he said.

“I’ve only just gotten out of my surgery, but from what I’ve heard so far there’s been at least two deaths, we’ve got some mini generators now though so we’ll be able to keep those numbers,” Lim said.

“Well that might go up to 4 if we don’t get out of here soon,” Neil replied.

“You should have enough oxygen in there to last a couple of days at least,” she said.

“Probably, but we’re also going insane in here, I’ve never felt so claustrophobic in my life,” he complained.

“I know, I’ll try to get you out of there as soon as we can,” she told him, “how’s Claire holding up?”

“She’s asleep right now, but this isn’t fun for her either,” he replied.

“Well you should get some sleep too Neil, you’re probably going to be in there for a little while,” she heard him huff loudly before hanging up on her.

Neil looked down at Claire, who was now laying there with her head in his lap and his jacket over her, he couldn’t see her but he could feel her heat on him and her hair that was under his hand as he comforted her. He sighed, this was going to be a long night.


	4. Perfect

“What’s been going on while I’ve been in surgery?” Lim asked, walking up to Andrews and Glassman.

“We’ve put the generators where they’re needed the most, there’s a few in the ICU, two in maternity and there’s still 3 OR’s in use so they each have one, food has been handed out and so have blankets and pillows, many of the patients and their families are asleep now so it’s all calmed down a bit, our main problem is keeping the critical patients alive,” Andrews explained.

“We have all hospital personnel taking it in turns to manually ventilate patients, anyone not ventilating someone is checking on the more stable patients,” Aaron added.

“Have there been any more deaths?” Audrey asked.

“Three more,” Aaron sighed.

“Okay, good job guys, I was worried when a nurse told me that Aaron was also in surgery to begin with but I should have known that you’d step up Marcus,” Lim complimented him.

“Thank you,” he replied, “Debbie and Lea have been a great help as well, that wife of yours is great at calming down patients families,” Aaron smiled when he heard this.

“Yes she is,” he said proudly, “any idea how the residents are getting on?”

Morgan sat in the darkness as she tried to keep her patient alive, she’d been sitting alone for almost 2 hours and there had been no change to her patient. She hadn’t gotten worse, but she wasn’t getting better either. She was lost in her thoughts that she didn’t realise someone had walked up to the door until she had a beam of light in her face

“How’s your patient doing?” She immediately recognised the voice as Park’s.

“Not dead, but not good,” she replied.

“Doing better than my patient then,” Alex replied, walking into the room and sitting on a chair.

“I’m sorry,” Morgan said, she heard Alex sigh.

“Wasn’t much I could do,” he muttered, “anyway I came here to take over from you, I imagine you’re incredibly bored in here.”

“After hearing about your patient, I don’t know if I want to leave Michelle with you,” she joked. Park laughed when she said this.

“I shall try my hardest to keep her alive,” he said, Morgan stood up and Park took over for her.

“Thank you,” she said before leaving the room.

“I’ve come back to help,” Shaun said to Carly as he walked in to the makeshift lab.

“There’s not much we can do now,” she sighed, “we’ve done pretty much every test we can do with what we’ve got.”

“Okay,” Shaun replied, “I’ll go back to helping patients,” he went to leave but Carly stopped him.

“Shaun,” she called out, he turned around and she wrapped her arms around him, “I heard about that nurse, I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“Yes, it’s sad,” he hugged her back, “I’m glad you’re okay too,” Carly smiled up at him and gave him a kiss.

“I’m going to finish up here, then I’ll come help out out there,” she told him, he nodded and left her to it.

Claire opened her eyes, confused at the complete darkness she was laying in, as she woke up a bit more she remembered where she was. She was about to sit up when she realised Neil had a hand on her hair and that her head was in his lap. She smiled to herself as she heard him softly snoring above her. She carefully moved his hand so that she could sit up without waking him but despite her effort he stirred and woke up.

“Everything okay?” He asked her.

“Yeah, I was just trying to sit up without waking you, sorry for falling asleep on you,” she said.

“It’s fine,” he said, “anytime,” she was glad they were in darkness so he couldn’t see her blushing.

“Do you want your jacket back?” She asked.

“You can wear it if you’d like, it is starting to get cold,” he replied.

“You sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” he chuckled.

“Thank you,” she said, putting her arms in the sleeves and wrapping it around her, “how much longer do you reckon we’ll be in here for?”

“I dunno, probably a little while still,” he answered.

“I’m so thirsty,” Claire said, “but I’m glad I’m dehydrated because if I’m not sure how I’d be able to go to the bathroom in here,” Neil laughed at this.

“Yeah me too,” he agreed, “you feeling better now than you were earlier?”

“Yes, thank you,” she answered.

“See, you just needed some sleep,” he replied, “how do you think they’re getting on out there?”

“I have no idea.”

“Can we get some help in here?” Lea shouted from one of the rooms, Morgan ran in there, now helping out in the ICU.

“What’s happened?” She asked.

“I can’t feel a pulse,” Lea replied. Morgan headed over to the patient and grabbed his wrist.

“Okay, I’m going to need to do chest compressions,” she said as she started CPR. She continued for as long as she could before Lea took over, they kept taking it in turns but after half an hour they realised it was too late for their patient, “time of death 4:21am” Morgan said, covering the man with a sheet.

“Oh my God,” Lea said.

“These things happen,” Morgan said putting a hand on her shoulder, “it sucks but sometimes there are people we can’t save,” Lea nodded and wiped a stray tear off her face before heading out of the room.

“We’re now up to 12 deaths,” Marcus said to Lim as he caught up with her, “we’ve turned a section of the 3rd floor into a makeshift morgue as we can’t get anyone down to the actual morgue.”

“Alright, I’ve been on the phone to the power company, a large chunk of the city is in darkness but they have people working to get everything back on, the storm isn’t helping though,” she told him.

“Do they have any idea how long that could be?” Marcus asked.

“Probably not until the morning, maybe midday,” she replied.

“So we just have to keep the patients alive for roughly 8 hours?”

“Apparently so.”

  
“I think boredom might kill me before the lack of oxygen does,” Claire muttered into the darkness of the elevator.

“I’ll try not to be too offended that you find my company boring,” Neil replied. Claire waved her arm around until she managed to hit his arm, “ow.”

“That’s for being an ass,” she replied, a slight giggle in her voice, “and I don’t find you boring, I find sitting in an elevator with you for hours boring.”

“Alright get up,” Neil said, standing up.

“Why?” She asked.

“Because you said you’re bored and I am also bored and if we keep sitting there we’re going to lose feeling in our legs,” he answered. Claire huffed but stood up. 

“So what are you thinking of doing?” She asked. 

“We’re going to dance,” he said, holding his hand out to her, “you can’t see it but I am offering you my hand,” Claire laughed and reached out until she could find his hand, he spun her around before pulling her close. 

“So you felt hanging out with a resident outside of work was too inappropriate but you’ll happily dance with me in a darkened elevator?” Claire laughed. 

“Well we should keep moving somehow, also dancing is fun so you won’t be bored anymore,” he replied.

“Yeah but it’s only really fun if you have music,” she retorted. 

“Okay fine,” Neil said, she was expecting him to let her go but instead he started singing. She chuckled slightly at his choice of song. 

“Really? You’re going to sing the song that we danced to at Angie and Ryan’s prom?” 

“Yeah, why do you not like it?” He joked. 

“Well you’re not quite at Ed Sheeran’s level, but I suppose I can deal with it,” she replied. He started singing again and after a while Claire joined in to. Once they finished the song Claire moved her arms from where they were in one of his hands and on his arm, to place them over his shoulders, pulling the two of them closer. Neil’s hands went around her waist. They couldn’t see each other but they could feel the tension between them. Claire started rubbing the back of his neck with one of her hands, “can I ask you a question?” She said.

“Of course,” he replied and she could feel his breath on her head as he spoke. 

“Can I kiss you?” Neil wasn’t expecting this question and for a second Claire was worried that she’d crossed the line. 

“Yes,” Neil replied, only slightly louder than a whisper. Claire stood on her tip toes and leaned forward, it took them a second to find each other’s lips in the pitch black elevator but soon enough they did, they couldn’t help feeling how right it felt to be in each other’s arms like this and as the kiss deepened, Melendez reached his hand up to cup her face, pulling her as close to himself as he could. Eventually they parted as the need for air got overwhelming, the were breathing heavily after their passionate moment and Claire rested her head on Neil’s chest as he held her close.


	5. Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So as I was about to write this chapter I noticed that some of the paragraphs on the last chapter got a bit messed up, for some reason this keeps happening so I’ll make sure to keep checking when I update 👍

Morgan looked through a patients file at the nurses station, she found what she was looking for and put the file back down before heading to the stairs, she was surprised when she got there and nearly tripped over a person sitting on the top step. She could hear sniffling and moved her torch so she could see who it was.

“Lea?” She asked. Lea looked up, her face stained with tears. I had been 4 hours since they lost their patient and Morgan hadn’t realised Lea was struggling so much.

“Sorry, I was just having a moment,” Lea said wiping tears from her face. Morgan sat down next to the other woman.

“Losing a patient is hard,” she said, “every time a patient dies it hurts, us doctors can take it better because it happens and we see it everyday, a lot of the time it’s expected, but for people who aren’t doctors and aren’t around death everyday, it’s going to be traumatic. But you helped that patient stay alive for as long as they did, and you tried your hardest to prevent their death, don’t beat yourself up about it.”

“Why do you even care how I feel? You hate me,” Lea replied.

“Yeah, I don’t like you, but that doesn’t mean I want to watch you suffer, I’m not that much of a cold hearted bitch. You’re going through something that you never thought you’d ever have to go through and I’m here if you need me,” Morgan told her. Lea looked up at her and smiled.

“Thanks,” she said. The two women looked ahead at the wall and sat in silence for a little while, until Morgan could hear Lea crying again. She wrapped an arm around the other woman’s shoulder and pulled her into her side as Lea let her tears come through.

“Shaun!” Carly called when she saw her boyfriend. Shaun looked up from the patient file he was reading.

“Hello Carly,” he said.

“Hey, I’ve finished all the lab work now, is there any way I can help out here?” She asked.

“Yes, I have to tell a person that their son has died, would you be able to come with me, I’m not very good at talking to people, normally there is someone else there to help,” Shaun replied.

“Of course,” Carly said and Shaun smiled at her. They made their way through the hospital, now able to see where they were going since it had gotten lighter outside.

“Mrs Peterson?” Shaun called out. A woman stood up and made her way over to them.

“That’s me,” she said, “is Andy ok?”

“I think it’d be better if we spoke somewhere quieter,” Shaun replied, looking around at the room packed full of anxious relatives.

“Of course,” the woman said. Shaun led them out into a quite corridor.

“I’m afraid Andy has died,” he told her, she put a hand over her mouth to cover a sob as her eyes started to fill with water, “there were complications after his surgery, we couldn’t save him,” Mrs Peterson stood there crying for a minute before speaking.

“How could you just let him die, did you even try to save him? Did you mess up in the surgery and cause this?” She questioned angrily. Carly could see Shaun starting to retreat into himself and spoke to the woman.

“I can assure you it wasn’t anything that happened during the surgery, every surgery is risky and complications can happen afterwards, under normal circumstances we can monitor this better but given everything that’s going on right now we are limited in what we can do. I am so sorry for your loss and I understand that you are hurting right now, but I promise you, we did everything we could to save your son,” she said. The other woman just nodded before walking off. Shaun quickly walked off in the opposite direction and Carly followed him, “Shaun!” She called out, Shaun stopped, she caught up with him and he flinched as she put a hand on his shoulder, “hey, it’s alright, she’s just upset at losing her son, she didn’t mean any of that.”

“I’m no good at talking to people,” Shaun said, “people are unpredictable, you don’t know what they will say, what they will ask and they don’t understand me,” he started pacing, “they believe I’m incompetent because I talk funny.”

“Shaun, you’re right, people are unpredictable, but they’re like that with everyone, not just you,” Carly tried to comfort him, “and anyone who know you knows that you’re not incompetent,” he stopped pacing and Carly went to stand next to him, “you are a brilliant surgeon and you did everything you could for that man, his mother was upset that she’d just lost her son and she took it out on you, that’s not because of anything you did.”

“You’re right,” Shaun said, “I am a brilliant surgeon,” he put an arm around Carly and hugged her slightly before walking down the corridor.

“Heard anything else from the power company?” Marcus asked Audrey as he met up with her and Aaron.

“Yeah, just got off the phone with them, we should hopefully have power within the next two hours,” the chief of surgery replied.

“Good,” Marcus said, “I can’t imagine anyone getting out of here anytime soon though, half the city is underwater, these are the worst floods we’ve had in years.”

“That’s true, but at least we’ll be able to do things to actually save our patients instead of just trying to prolong their deaths,” Aaron spoke up.

“These are all things that can be sorted out once we have power again and are in a better condition,” Audrey replied before leaving the two men.

“So I guess getting stuck in an elevator with me for a whole day wasn’t such a bad thing,” Neil said, kissing Claire on the head. They were sat against the wall again, Neil had his arm around the small woman’s shoulders and she had an arm around his waist.

“I guess not,” Claire replied, squeezing him slightly.

“And when we get out of this elevator, I’m going to take you on a date, food, wine, candles, the whole works,” Neil told her.

“You’re such a romantic,” Claire laughed.

“Yep, and I bet you’re gonna love every minute of the date, despite all the romance,” Neil said.

“Is that so?”

“Yes,” Neil said confidently.

“I’d love whatever we do together,” Claire smiled, “I love you,” she didn’t mean to say the last part, but Neil grinned when she did.

“I love you too,” he replied, he used his free hand to lift her face towards him. Just as their lips were about to connect, the elevator suddenly filled with light. They both covered their eyes at the sudden brightness, they let go of each other as they stumbled to their feet, they felt the metal box start to move and heard a ding before the doors opened.

Alex was sat with Michelle when the lights turned back on, it took him a second to realise what was going in and as soon as he did he plugged the woman back into the ventilator, he looked over to the monitor which was now lit up, it beeped steadily as it showed her heart rate, her O2 level were good as well and he smiled as he realised that she was doing well despite the setbacks.

Shaun, Carly and Dr Glassman were standing around a nurses station discussing the next steps when the ceiling lit up, everyone on the floor cheered and the nurses and doctors all rushed to put their patients on the life saving equipment that many of them needed, Shaun and Carly headed into a room each to help out and Aaron went to find Audrey.

Audrey and Marcus were stood by the glass railing that over looked the ground floor of the hospital when Aaron joined them.

“It’s supposed to be warm after this storm has passed, hopefully this will dry out quickly,” he said to the two.

“Hopefully,” Audrey replied, “I’m pretty sure we’ll have to keep the whole ground floor closed for a while, only letting people in through one door, we’ll also have to keep the ER closed too.”

“Probably,” Andrews agreed, “Oh well, the hospital could do with redecorating anyway,” the three surgeons all chuckled and continued to talk about the plans for the hospital when it’s all over.

Claire and Neil stumbles out of the elevator, breathing in deeply, they looked over to each other before laughing. After a couple of minutes and some odd looks from nurses who walked past, they stopped laughing.

“I don’t know what’s funny,” Claire said wiping tears from her eyes.

“Me neither,” Neil replied, “I think we’re just laughing out of relief, or maybe how ridiculous that situation was.”

“Well whatever it was, we probably shouldn’t laugh again, those nurses looked ready to kill us,” Claire said, causing them both to start giggling.

“C’mon, lets go find the others and let them know we’re alright,” They both headed off to find their colleagues, it didn’t take long before they found Marcus, Aaron and Audrey.

“Fun day?” Aaron asked.

“Very,” Neil replied sarcastically, “I don’t think I’ll be able to take an elevator ever again.”

“Was it really that bad?” Marcus asked.

“It wouldn’t have been if it wasn’t pitch black,” Claire responded, “you’re just sitting there in complete darkness and it just makes the room feel smaller than it is. It also doesn’t help when you’re stuck in there with someone who snores,” she joked. 

“Or someone who starts freaking out,” Neil shot back, but they were both grinning at their banter.

“Well, you’re alright now, we’ve gotten through the worst,” Audrey said, “there’s still a lot more to sort out though,” the surgeons all nodded and looked out over the glass railing at the state of the hospital.


	6. Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this will be a fairly short chapter because I wasn’t too sure how to end this story, but I hope you all like it!

For the next couple of days, everybody was still stuck at the hospital. The fire department had evacuated nearby houses but decided it would be easier and safer to leave the people in the hospital, they had delivered them food to last until they could get them out and eventually the storm had stopped and most of the water that was flooding the hospital and the streets outside had evaporated or made its way down the drains.

It took two weeks before the lab was up and running again so in that time they didn’t take any new patients, they discharged as many patients as they could and some of the critical patients were transferred to other hospitals that weren’t as badly affected by the storm. It took another two weeks before the ER could be used again and a further month before the whole ground floor was reopened and the hospital seemed back to normal. 

The nurse and all the patients that were lost were transferred to the morgue within the first week and a small memorial was held for them, there had definitely been more deaths than there should have been in one day and the hospital found itself under a microscope as an investigation was set up to find out if the situation could have been handled better and why the back up generator didn’t kick in to keep the power in the hospital running. The investigation didn’t last long, they soon realised that the staff did everything they could do in the situation and that the generator was just an electrical fault that happened due to the lightening hitting the hospital.

Many of the doctors had volunteered to help with the redecorating of the first floor when they had time, mainly repainting walls and moving furniture, due to this, Claire and Neil didn’t get to have their date until the night that the ground floor had reopened.

Neil picked Claire up from her house that night and drove them to a fancy restaurant. He opened the door for her and pulled out her chair in the restaurant causing her to roll her eyes at him.

“Going all out on the romance are you?” She asked with a smile on her face. Neil grinned.

“Of course, I’m a romantic guy,” Claire scoffed when he said this, “you’ll become a romantic eventually,” he teased.

“Not a chance,” she replied. They looked over the menu’s that the waiter had given them and soon enough they’d ordered and were waiting for their food. Neil reached across the table and held her hand.

“I’m so lucky I got stuck in an elevator with you,” he told her, she smiled at him.

“Me too,” she said, the waiter then came over and placed the drinks that they had ordered in front of them. They picked them up and Neil held his out for a toast.

“To elevators,” he said, “and perfectly timed power cuts,” Claire giggled and clinked her glass against his.

“To elevators and power cuts,” she responded before they both took a sip.

The spent the rest of the night eating, drinking, flirting and laughing and by the end of their date they were both aware that this was the start of something beautiful, and al it took to set this in motion was a power cut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if you’d like me to write more stories in this style! Also some other pairings you may like to see, all my fics will be Melendaire but I’m open to adding other couples.


End file.
